


Harry Potter: The Next Generation

by Arenal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:45:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arenal/pseuds/Arenal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Hogwarts students have just started school. Their relationships develop over a series of snapshots. POV characters are: Rose Weasley (Ravenclaw), Scorpius Malfoy (Slytherin), Renata Dursley (Hufflepuff), and Gareth Clare-Chang (Gryffindor).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Dursley, Renata!”  
Renata slowly walked up to the Sorting Hat, more nervous and self-conscious than she had ever been in her life. She was always at least slightly uncomfortable in crowds because of her weight; she always had the feeling that she was the object of derisive scrutiny. This was ten times worse, though. This was the first stop on the road she’d be walking for the rest of her time in school, the road where she’d need to prove herself as a witch.  
She didn’t dare look around, for fear that she might meet her cousins’ eyes. Albus, she knew, was somewhere behind her in the first-years’ line, but James—brilliant James, witty James, cocky, arrogant, charismatic James who had every quality one could ask of life—would be sitting somewhere in the crowd and she didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to notice him gaping at her. Had he known she would be there? Had Dad told Uncle Harry; had Uncle Harry told James and Albus and Lily? She didn’t know and she hadn’t wanted to find out; she’d begged Dad to come so early James and Albus wouldn’t be getting on the train yet, and then she’d found a compartment right away and hidden from them throughout the train ride. She wasn’t sure which would be worse: James’ and Albus’ surprise when they saw her if they hadn’t been told, or their expectation that she would fail if they had been told. They must expect her to fail, after all; she still couldn’t believe she was really here, and was terrified that at some point someone would tell her it had all been a mistake.  
She felt like a lot of her life had been a mistake, really, even though she had a comfortable life. She had a name that sounded like it should belong to some ancient queen, but instead it belonged to dumpy little Renata Dursley, who at eleven years old was already seriously overweight. She lived in a lovely house in the suburbs with parents who doted on her and siblings who, all told, weren’t really that annoying as siblings went, and she figured she was probably nice enough, but she had very few friends, all as ungainly and discontent as she was. She’d understand whatever the teacher was talking about in class and then when she got to the test she wouldn’t know how to do anything. She wasn’t confident enough, wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t smart enough, and now, here, she probably wouldn’t be magical enough either.  
And yet…and yet…this was her chance, wasn’t it? This was her chance to begin a new life, and she wanted to seize it with both hands. She was terrified, but she was eager, and she wanted to succeed here so badly it hurt. She’d work harder than she ever had before if it meant she could really be a witch.  
She thought all this as she sat under the hat, nervous and trying not to show it and knowing she must be showing it, and the hat hemmed and hawed for what seemed like ages, and she was getting more and more nervous; maybe that meant she really shouldn’t be here after all, but no, this was her chance and she would do any amount of work for it—  
“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Albus nudged Rose. “See, Rose, that’s my cousin from the other side of my family—well, kind of a second cousin, I guess; my dad’s cousin’s daughter. Dad told us she was coming and I was really excited but then I didn’t see her on the train or anything, so I thought maybe she was coming late.”  
“Uh-huh,” Rose said, distracted, examining each face of her future classmates. She wanted to remember them all quickly; she wanted to get to know them all. It was just in her nature, really—Rose always wanted to know everything. Her father always said she took it after her mother, often in a slightly exasperated tone, which Rose didn’t understand. It was the greatest compliment she could imagine, because her mother was the smartest person she knew, smarter even than her parents’ friend Luna, who was a real naturalist and always had the best stories, or her cousin, James; Rose had heard of him that he was his grandfather reincarnated, with his grandfather’s brains as well, and Rose didn’t really know what that meant, but everything seemed to come easily to James.  
Rose had once gone to her mother in tears, worried that she would never be able to know everything, and because James understood things so quickly; what if everyone at school would be like that? Her mother had sat Rose down and explained to her firmly that first, she was every bit as clever as James was, and second, picking things up quickly didn’t necessarily mean that James was the cleverest, and thirdly, Rose would easily keep up with everyone at school, and fourthly, she shouldn’t be comparing herself to James in the first place unless she knew she wouldn’t be mad at James and unless it meant she could improve herself.  
“And fifth, and maybe most important of all,” her mother had told Rose, “nobody can ever know everything. What you can do is learn as much as you can. What matters is that if you want to learn something, you pursue it and make sure you understand it thoroughly, and you will make that knowledge yours. You can’t know everything, but if you learn as close to everything as you can, that will be more than enough.”  
Rose had kept that as her motto ever since.  
It almost made her wish she were in Ravenclaw, a little bit, because she’d heard a lot of people in Ravenclaw were like that, but eventually she pushed that thought out of her head. She was supposed to be in Gryffindor, just like her parents, and just like all her uncles and Aunt Ginny, and like James, and like her favorite cousin, Roxanne, and like she was sure her other favorite cousin, Albus, would be.  
“Malfoy, Scorpius,” was called up, and Rose watched him curiously. That was the boy her father had told her to make sure she beat, but she felt no enmity toward him now. He looked just like everyone else standing around her—a nervous eleven-year old, unsure of himself and wanting to gain a place at Hogwarts.  
He was slender and very blond, with slightly pointed, elfin features, and Rose was mad at herself for thinking that it was really a very pleasant face. Her parents and older cousins definitely wouldn’t approve of thoughts like that, so she put it out of her mind, somewhere near where she’d put the thought about being a Ravenclaw.  
The hat declared Scorpius a Slytherin the second it touched his head, and he walked toward the Slytherin table looking apprehensive. Albus was called up shortly after that; he was starting to look a little sick, and Rose forced herself to put on a brave face for him and wave cheerily as he walked up. He managed to smile back at her, but he needn’t have worried; the hat decided that he was a Gryffindor even faster than it had placed Scorpius as a Slytherin, and Albus walked away looking very relieved, to join James, who ruffled Albus’ hair furiously and gave Albus a Chocolate Frog James had saved from the train. James could be very sweet sometimes, Rose reflected.  
There were very few students left by the time “Weasley, Rose” was called, and Rose managed to walk up to the stool, which she thought was almost a miracle, as she couldn’t feel her legs.  
“Oh, my,” the hat said. “I’m getting quite a lot of easy decisions in this bunch, aren’t I, Miss Weasley?”  
What?  
“Oh, that thirst for knowledge—how do you put it in here—you want to know everything, yes. I think the decision is pretty clear, isn’t it?”  
No. No, please, not if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. My parents will be so disappointed.  
“Nonsense, child! You should go to the House that’s best for you. And I see it in here, yes, plain as day, a little thought pushed out of the way because you’re scared of it. You really do want this, don’t you? You want to be in—  
“RAVENCLAW!”  
As Rose numbly stepped down from the dais, her first feeling was completely unexpected: an overwhelming wave of relief. Yes, she was going to Ravenclaw, where she would be with other students who wanted to know everything, and she would fit in and thrive—  
And then she noticed Albus, sitting at the Gryffindor table, looking at her in shock. There was an empty seat next to him, she noticed with a pang—he’d probably been saving it for her. As she watched, a first-year boy whose name had been called much earlier, before Renata, even, slipped into the seat, and the spell was broken. She turned away from Albus and walked toward the Ravenclaw table—and though she was sorry to have disappointed Albus, and knew that later she would be furious with herself for disappointing her parents, the welcome she received from the Ravenclaw table momentarily made it all worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Malfoy,” one of the boys said, sneering at Scorpius, and Scorpius thought he knew what was coming. In the past three days, he’d already heard more nasty remarks directed at him than he’d ever expected, mostly from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, and a few from Ravenclaw. He could already tell he didn’t fit in at Slytherin—he wasn’t nearly as interested in Dark magic as some of the students in his House, and from the way they talked he could tell they wanted power for very different reasons than he did. But at least none of them mocked him for being the son of Draco Malfoy. They all personally understood the stigma attached to being a Slytherin, especially the stigma that came with being the son of a former Death Eater. He couldn’t be proud of his father’s legacy, and he desperately wanted to distance himself from it, but nobody would give him the chance.  
There weren’t very many other people in Slytherin that he felt he could relate to well. There was Dominique Weasley, who seemed to stand out the same way he knew he did, but she and her friends were all fifth years and they would never pay attention to him. He’d made some friends, because there were people in his House who accepted him just by virtue of the fact that he was Draco Malfoy’s son, but he didn’t think he particularly wanted to be friends with those people. For the moment, he was trapped in his father’s shadow.  
And now he was being cornered too, by two Gryffindor third-years in an empty hallway, and they seemed like they were going to do more than just hurl nasty names at him.  
A thick-fingered hand shot out and grabbed the collar of his robe. Scorpius thrashed wildly, trying to get free, and the boy laughed cruelly. “Hey, Iago! Would you look at this! The little scorpion squirms!”  
“Yeah,” the other one said nastily. “I bet he’d squirm more, though. What do you think, Pedro?”  
“What do you say we give him a message for his daddy?” Pedro said, drawing a fist back. Scorpius managed to kick Pedro hard in the shin, and Pedro dropped Scorpius in surprise. “Why, you little bugger, I’ll thrash you till you’re purple!”  
“Hey!” another voice called.  
Scorpius scrambled away and looked past Pedro and Iago to see another Gryffindor boy striding toward them. At first Scorpius thought he was another of Iago and Pedro’s friends, here to join the fun, but this boy was a first-year, and his anger was directed at the older boys.  
“You have no right to go around beating people up!” he snapped.  
Iago snorted. “Gary, do you have any idea who this kid is?”  
“I don’t care,” the boy said with eleven-year-old fierceness, looking like a mouse squeaking at a lion. “Go away. Do you want me to tell Lupin?”  
Pedro huffed and glared at him. “Leave us alone, Gary. We’re just having a bit of fun.”  
“My name’s Gareth,” the boy snapped. “And you can take your fun and shove it up your—”  
“Fine!” Iago shouted. “Just don’t come crying to us later, you snake-lover!”  
Scorpius stood up shakily. His father had taught him not to show weakness, but it was rather too late for that now, and his father had also taught him to make alliances where he could. At least he could make an ally of this boy, who had so far done more for him than anyone else at the school. “Thanks,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Thank you. Very much.”  
Gareth glared at him with unexpected coldness. “They were being bullies. I don’t like bullies,” he said harshly. “They were giving Gryffindor a bad name. But I don’t like Slytherin either.”  
He stalked away before Scorpius could say anything else.  
And suddenly, Scorpius felt a wave of resentment swelling in him. So it was going to be like that, was it? If everyone was going to hate him anyway, he might as well do something worthy of being hated. He couldn’t stand unfairness. If they were going to judge him for being a Slytherin no matter what he did, why not make that judgment fair?  
He walked away in fury, finally understanding the idea behind the clannishness of Slytherin House. It’s us against the rest of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Renata Dursley and Gareth Clare-Chang are both original characters. Renata is Dudley's daughter; her name means "redemption". Gareth is the son of Cho Chang and her Muggle wife, whom I named Vivian Clare; his name refers to one of the knights in the King Arthur legends.


End file.
